Explore the Cinematic Techniques Steven Spielberg Used in 'Raiders of the Lost Ark'

Director Steven Soderbergh recently removed the color from Steven Spielberg's Raiders of the Lost Ark to explore the film's staging, and here to provide us with more educational treasures is editor Vashi from Vashi Visuals, who shared a number of his own videos that break down some of the techniques used by Spielberg.

In this video, Vashi explores how Spielberg uses only 12 shots to effectively and interestingly introduce the audience to the film's hero, Indiana Jones -- without the use of dialog. We've all heard the unofficial golden rule of filmmaking "Show, don't tell" -- try not to use dialog and exposition to tell your story if you can use cinematography and visuals -- or at least as much as you can (not hating on dialog here). That way, your audience is given the chance to partake in the thrilling experience of storytelling -- putting two and two together, solving the puzzle -- instead of just being given all of the answers.

Even though Spielberg isn't particularly known for his long takes, he certainly executes them as well as those who are. Long takes allow your viewer to marinate in the moment instead of being given new information every 4.6 seconds (average shot length), which can both inspire some powerful emotional reactions from your audience, and allow you, the filmmaker, to tell your story in new, interesting ways. Vashi says:

This long take in Raiders of the Lost Ark asks an important question. What drives Indiana Jones? Glory? Power? Integrity? Righteousness? Honor? What makes Indy who he is and is he really different from Belloq? This quiet dialog exchange carries as much power and revelation as the largest explosion.

One thing to keep in mind, though, if you're going to try to tackle a long take is that just because there are no edits cutting to new characters, places, or objects doesn't mean that those things aren't introduced to keep the scene interesting. Paying attention to framing, staging, and camera movement is of the utmost importance when trying to pull off a long take. Each time the camera moves or someone enters the frame is essentially the equivalent of a cut to a new shot, because it is a new shot -- kind of -- just choreographed and captured in real-time. Vashi shares this excellent floorplan animatic video that reveals each camera movement in the longest shot in Raiders, which really helps to understand this concept.

For more resources that really dig into Raiders of the Lost Ark, be sure to head on over to Vashi's blog post, in which he has shared a plethora of videos, interviews, PDFs, and more that break down this iconic adventure flick.

You might've missed the point of the film. You're talking about the film's plot and its "MacGuffin". The film is about Indy learning to believe in something. This long take being analyzed here shows us that, in the beginning, Indy is a non-believer. "I don't believe in magic. A lot of superstitious hocus pocus." But by the end of the film, when he's tied up and they're about to open the Ark he tells Marion to close her eyes because now he does believe in it. He's come to discover some sense of belief from the experience. That's what the film is about.

This constant Spielberg worshipping is getting annoying. He made a lot of decent movies, right. But by no means were his films made like intricate master pieces where each and every single little thing was crafted with a loupe like these clips imply. He has a rather crude way of setting up his scenes and the long single scenes he does are often rather badly done and more for the effect than to further his story. Even though I don't like his newer movies anymore, David Fincher's older movies are so much more nitpickingly made.

Did anyone else feel the first video confused "shots" with "cuts"? For instance: 1, 9, and 11 are continuations of the same "shot" across multiple cuts, as are 2 & 4.

The author subtitled the video "Cutting in the Camera," which is a technique this video doesn't show (Robert Rodriguez explains cutting in camera really well in "Ten Minute Film School", which you can find on youtube). What little explanation does exist is about the physical cuts with no reference to which shot each cut actually comes from.

(Also, a misprint in the title card at :13 indicates this could have been thought out a little more.)

Except for some action shots like when the bar was on fire, etc., Spielbrerg shoots with one camera. After 1941, in which Spielberg felt he blew way too much money that Universal was happy to give him, and they gave him a lot. Anything he wanted, they gave him. After that he felt that he was better serving himself as a filmmaker by having a budget and a strict schedule. I believe the original budget he got for Raiders was more than he thought he needed, and he actually asked for a lower budget as he knew he could shoot it for what he cold shoot it for. With Raiders, he decided he would never go over schedule and over budget on one of his films again like he did on Jaws, Close Encounters and 1941. So after 1941 he swore to stay under schedule and under budget. So he would storyboarded the entire film he was shooting and he stuck to the storyboards. Part of that was only shooting with one camera for most scenes and only shooting what needed. So the author is correct. He was editing with his camera. Later on, and after many films he no longer needed to storyboard (This was after Jp and Lost World) as he shot so much he could storyboard in his head, but he still never shot more than he knew he needed for his cut, and therefore shot as if he storyboarded the films. Jurassic Park he stuck to a storyboard but if he saw a shot on location that was not in the storyboard, he would shoot it so long as it did not screw with the schedule. He also stopped doing so many takes and I think he will only shoot up to 4 or 5 takes now at the most.

Also studios in the early 70's were bringing in maverick directors and letting them do their own thing. This led to Jaws, Star Wars, Close Encounters, etc. However, after 1941, One From the Heart, American Graffiti 2, which lost the studios money, the studios started to reign in control on even proven directors. Heavens Gate sealed that deal and studios started clamping down and Spielberg saw the writing on the wall as one of his films was what the studio heads were doing this for.

I have to kinda disagree with the whole "Even though Spielberg isn't particularly known for his long takes" comment. Tony Zhou did a wonderful video on the Spielberg one take. https://vimeo.com/94628727

I'm not sure I agree with the whole "editors know when not to cut" regarding these examples.

When we watch these films, Spielberg was under pressure to bring these films in under a small budget. Master Shots are the easiest, cheapest way to get your film in the can. When done correctly, the audience isn't even aware that it has happened.

The long takes I read came from a sort of contes that Spielberg, Lucas, Scorsese and one other director who I can not remember had going with each other. They each tried to one up each other with a long take with multiple characters going in and out of frame and joining the conversation. The Hallway scene going to the town meeting in Jaws was his scene for the contest. People also try to cite the scene with the Mayor, Brody and Hooper at the Beach Sign that had a shark fin painted. That actually is a long take because the town counsel would only let them put up the sign for a few hours, and any shot with the sign had to be done within those few hours. So that long take was done out of necessity and not as a part of the contest as in order to get the entire scene, he decided to shoot it as one long moving take instead of setting up for different shots and going over time and they would have to take the sign down.

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